


Hope's Fruition

by hnathe (vesuviusPrivateer)



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: F/M, spoilers for the end of the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesuviusPrivateer/pseuds/hnathe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, instead of a happy ending, a story’s close heralds a beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope's Fruition

What he missed most was her voice, he thought, as his quill flashed across the paper. Oh, he could hear it in his mind, echoing old words—but it wasn’t the same as being able to really talk to her.

They certainly had means of communication; words from his side and an odd combination of gestures and interpretive dance from hers—and it sufficed as far as the exchange of information went, but . . . The most spirited dance was not the same as her voice, loud and ringing in his ear.

He would never tell her that—she took pride in what dancing she could still do.

Everything else remained, a duck mimicking a young girl in carriage and personality—but a quack and a flutter of wings was no replacement for hearing her voice say his name.

Even hearing his name the way she had said it in the beginning—with a pout or a hesitation in her voice—would suffice, he sometimes thought.

Sometimes when he remembered her voice, he tried to imagine her calling his name in the way she had once called out for a prince. Always, always it fell short. Always it felt empty and false. He wished she had called his name like that just once before she had given up the heart shard—if only so he could hear it in memory now.

What would happen, he wondered, if— _when—_ she became human again? He had promised to stay by her side forever, but when she was once again given human form, no longer dependent on him for company, would she want him by her side?

He couldn’t think such thoughts, he told himself each time they crossed his mind. He could not think any thoughts that slowed his pen, made him lose hope. He had to hope with her, no matter what the result may be.

Hoping was harder work than people made it out to be. Hope was piles of papers and manuscript after manuscript scrapped—thrown away because he had tried too soon, or too late, or used the wrong words, to incite her transformation. Hope was ink-stained hands and ink-stained clothes and an ink-stained desk.

Hope was a duck building a little nest from scrapped manuscripts and gazing up at him from it as if to say that even his failures were not useless.

Hope was that same duck, sleeping in that little nest, as he wrote about her dreams.

She dreamed of dancing with a prince, and writing just those words stung a bit. The thought that she still held feelings for the prince was a persistent squeezing of his heart, taunting him that he could not be a prince for her, had failed to be a knight, and was left only with the task of writing her back into humanity.

She dreamed of dancing with a prince.

A pas de deux.

The prince’s arms were strong, and with her hands in his she felt callouses. These were sword-wielding hands—and the squeezing persisted, because he had been useless with swords in hand.

The prince hid his face from her, but she knew who he was. She would always know her prince. In his arms she felt graceful and strong—powerful, and hopeful. It was he who always gave her the strength to keep dancing, even when she was at her weakest. His was the voice that guided and encouraged her. So she knew, without turning her head, that it was her prince.

A warm light washed over her, pervading the entire dream, and she faltered—as did his quill. He would turn his head to see the sleeping duck, but his eyes were glued to the page. He began to write again, and the princess spoke.

“Is that it?”

The prince did not answer—could not answer. The princess smiled, turning to her prince and giving a curtsy, with her thanks. She raised her eyes to see her prince, and what greeted her were not the brown eyes of the prince she had once loved, but the green eyes of—

His own green eyes widened as his hand wrote on, unbidden. The princess turned away from the prince who was a knight who was a writer, who was her friend, and toward the source of the warm, bright light. Her eyes closed even in her dream as she reached out a hand toward that light, a smile just as warm spreading  across her face as she prepared to step through and into that light, and then to wake.

She knew, oh, she knew, what awaited her at the end of that light was a dance far greater than any she could dream, and a prince who would not hide his face from her as they danced.

Her eyes opened once more—but this time, it was not in the world of dreams that she awoke, and it was not a finely dressed prince that greeted those eyes but a young man who looked as if he had only just been roused from sleep. He leaned over his desk and wrote rapidly, furiously—writing as if hunted, as if mad—driven to write as if his life depended on it.

She saw the man put down his quill, and knew he had found the ending he had long sought.

He shook, not daring to turn—to lay eyes on her and see for himself whether his writing had truly taken hold. He was hopeful, but afraid. Tears pricked at his eyes at the thought that it might be yet another false alarm, and then—

“Good morning, Fakir!”

**Author's Note:**

> wow so I finished watching Princess Tutu and wanted to write something happy for once. Whether I have the capacity to do so is yet to be seen.


End file.
